The flattening of Jenin

Israel's “war crime”

War is terrible—but there are rules. Did Israel observe them?

THE stinking ruins of the refugee camp in Jenin are a grotesque spectacle whose consequences will long be felt by all parties to the Middle Eastern tragedy. Ghastly enough as it was in reality, the story of Jenin will be retold, and distorted, in the lore of Jews and Arabs for generations to come.

Some will cite the events there as evidence of the hypocrisy of a West which wants Serbia, as the price for economic aid, to co-operate with a war-crimes tribunal whose jurisdiction covers the “wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages”. Others will point to the killing of 7,000 Bosnians in Srebrenica as the kind of atrocity to which words like “massacre” properly apply—and say that using such words of killing on a much smaller scale, however ugly, distorts and misleads.

When non-combatants die, that is not proof that their killers broke the law, but the onus is on the attackers to show that they tried to spare civilians

To begin settling this argument, it is worth asking whether the actions which led to the wreckage of Jenin were technically war crimes—in other words, a gross violation of the laws of war. These laws try to sharpen two distinctions which are never entirely clear: between peace and armed conflict, and between soldiers and non-combatants. Once a conflict starts, the parties are entitled to kill combatants (even those not engaged in fighting), but they must spare and succour non-combatants and wounded fighters. When non-combatants die, that is not proof that their killers broke the law, but the onus is on the attackers to show that they tried to spare civilians.

The fighting between Israelis and Palestinians does meet the definition of armed conflict, one in which both sides have organised structures and control certain places. So it was not illegal for Israel to seek out and kill members of the Palestinian militias, or for the Palestinians to hit back. Palestinian attacks on army checkpoints are an act of war, not a war crime, whereas blowing up buses and restaurants grossly flouts the law. Still, the fact that Israel has suffered criminal attacks does not remove its own duty to observe humanitarian norms.

Any army fighting a popular militia has hard choices. Guerrillas blur the line between combatants and non-combatants. At best this will force the other side to hold back; at worst it will tempt the stronger party into over-reacting. Were the Israeli army's choices technically legitimate? Can there be any ground, under the laws of war, for flattening people's homes, without waiting, as alleged in some cases, to warn the residents? It is not yet possible for outsiders to assess the scale on which homes were destroyed with civilians inside; or to assess the claims by Jenin's residents that their town is a “mass grave”. The Israelis certainly have a case to answer. They will defend their legal corner by saying that homes in Jenin became fair targets when fighters started firing from them.

At least tend the wounded

What seems clearer is that the Israeli authorities did breach those laws of war which require them to care for non-combatants and the wounded. The plight of women, children and the elderly in Jenin has been gravely exacerbated by the denial of access to medical workers, food and water. There is a terrible cruelty in the way many combatants and non-combatants alike died slowly of their wounds, in Jenin and elsewhere. The world does not yet know what horrors remain to be uncovered. By itself, the fate of the wounded and the helpless in Jenin undermines the Israeli claim that it scrupulously observed the laws of war. It is a tribute to Israel's democracy that some Israelis are saying so too.